


on the wrong side, looking at the right side

by temporalDecay



Series: Tumblr Porn Prompt Fics [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, Bulges and Nooks, Fisting, Hermaphroditic Trolls, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Nook Worship, Oral Sex, Pheromones, Sex Toys, Size Difference, Size Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat, hiding from the Empire and dealing with a side-effect of his mutation, comes to grips with Darkleer, his life and his choices, when their carefully detached routine is interrupted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the wrong side, looking at the right side

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for anon, who gave me the prompt "Darkleer's big hands on little Karkat's body", and then the ficlet just _grew_.
> 
> Non-con/dub-con warming because of the whole heat-cycle thing. Issues about consent are addressed, despite it all.

It is a singularly infuriating situation you are in, one that transcends the realms of unfairness in every possible level. You're alive, but no one else really knows it and you have no power to make your life worthwhile now, when they've all gone and given you up for dead. You're not alone, but most of the time you might as well be, for all your... hivemate goes out of his way to stay out of yours. You're not a prisoner, but outside the confines of this place there's only death waiting for you, and that is all the warden you need. You're an adult, which you never thought you'd be able to be, given the circumstances, but even the most basic needs of your body are somehow warped by your mutation. 

Every season, your blood boils in your veins and your body burns for release. It would be bad enough, if that were all, but even your fucking _pheromones_ are wrong. Rather than stimulants to induce the right type of slurry production, whether black or red, what oozes out of your pores seems to make trolls in the vicinity incapable of keeping their hands off your person. And even that wouldn’t be so bad, in and of itself, but there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to keep the other troll to share your exile away from you. If it were any other troll, literally any other troll out there in the galaxy with you, they would have fucked you dead already. Which would have been gross and undignified but at least you’d be free of this bullshit. But no, you’re stuck with the one troll that takes self-control so seriously he can, in fact, resist the urge to murder you with his fucking bulge. 

So here you are, stuck in a situation built on so many circumstantial conditions that you’re starting to think the universe has a very personal vendetta against you, forced to endure out of spite by now, because fuck it if you’ll give up now. You spend your nights trying to find ways to entertain yourself and keep your mind from spiraling down into insanity and your days rolling around in homemade sopor that doesn’t quite stop you from dreaming about how different things could be, in a thousand different ways. Night in, night out, and the strange uncertainty on whether this will end someday or not. 

You snarl at yourself when you find your hand rubbing insistently against your groin, because you fucking refuse to jerkoff to your own goddamn misery. You can’t, however, continue to ignore the throbbing, which has now degenerated into a steady trickle of viscous red coming out your nook. So you pull your clothes off with jerky, impatient movements and throw them to a corner of the block you’ve claimed your own this season. The caves are damp and dark, which is usually a nice respite from the stifling heat of the hot season, but the cool air makes your skin break out in goosebumps when you’re like this, and you need to force yourself not to think about what you look like right now, naked and shivery and with red staining your thighs. The only thing that’d make it worse would be if your bulge were unsheathed and writhing between your legs, but you still have enough control to keep it coiled and cramped inside you, even if the sensation is slowly inching its way to painful. 

Your feet make no sound on the rock floors as you navigate the labyrinth of corridors and stairs to the other side of the complex, where Darkleer has made his den this season. It’s not an arrangement, really, not something you agreed on consciously, like the sex or the hunting, but it’s something he’s done since you came along. You choose a new block every season, because there are enough blocks here you could choose a new one every night and not sleep on the same one twice in a sweep, and because depending on the climate outside, you need somewhere warmer or cooler. Also because you go into heat – and you hate putting it like that, you hate it so much, you’re not an _animal_ – once per season and thus spend nearly a week rutting and leaving puddles of slurry all over your living areas, and even after cleaning everything up you still can’t bring yourself to stay. But no matter what you chose or where you claim your dwellings for the time being, your companion politely chooses the ones in the exact opposite side of the complex. Whether they’re too cold or too hot for the season, or too small and cramped for his bulky frame, or otherwise inconvenient somehow, he continues to give you space. He makes you search him out, which used to drive you mad with anger, until you realized it was his awkward, stupid way to not force you into his company, if you didn’t want it. 

“Darkleer,” you call, once you reach the open door of what’s been turned into his workshop. He’s bent over the desk, minding something or another though you can see the minute shake in his hands and you wonder how long he’s been resisting the urge to just find you and have you any way he feels like fucking you. You wonder when his self-control will snap and he’ll just let you end. “Darkleer, stop dicking around with that shit and fuck me.” 

You walk into his reach and then go limp when he holds your waist, hands large enough to almost circle it entirely. A cruel part of your mind, one you never knew you had until you ended up here, wonders if he sees you as yet another punishment to make his exile as miserable as possible. You like to think you let him do with you as he will because you don’t care whether he hurts you or not, but you can’t deny you like the way he shudders when you go pliable and willing. You wonder if it’d turn him on, without the influence of your pheromones, if you went and laid on his workbench like this and told him he can have you. But you never will, for all you think about it, because the system might be broken and stupid and unfair, but it works. When desperation hits you hard enough, you could almost say he’s your friend. He’s got his life and you got yours, and you’ve adapted to survive together because all other alternatives are worse. And then once each season your body goes mental and you spend nearly a week fucking each other stupid. You like to think you’re mature enough to not let something like that ruin a perfectly useful survival relationship, but the truth is that you’re probably too fucking tired to make a scene about it. 

Then you stop thinking, abruptly and all together, because those hands are holding your thighs up and open for you, and Darkleer’s tongue is pressing against the edges of your nook, cleaning the red stains and at the same time coaxing more. You stop thinking and focus solely on feeling, because your pan was not equipped to do both at the same time, and you’re a miserable shitty asshole, because you welcome the lack of rational thought almost as much as the orgasm he drags out of your body with his tongue. 

You can feel your walls twitching still, when he uses two fingers to shove your slurry back inside. You don’t know what it is: the girth of his fingers forcing your nook open wide or the strange contrast between the warmth of your insides and the cold, crusty slurry coating his cool skin, or the fact he’s just sitting there, expression unreadable as he plays with you the same way he plays with the trinkets he tinkers with. You don’t know, but it’s hot and you want him to never stop, even as your body shakes and you find your aching nook muscles squeezing together as they push another measure of genetic material out of you. Darkleer’s thumb is pressing on your sheath, right on the slit, and that means your bulge is swollen and tangled under your skin, trapped inside your body and sending a constant pulse of pain-like pressure straight into your nook. You look down at yourself and you can see your groin raised into a bump where your bulge is trying desperately to free itself. Then, once you’re almost done from the previous climax, he removes his hand entirely, and your bulge unsheathes in one, desperate movement. The lack of pressure is enough to send you right back up the heights of orgasm, and you writhe helplessly on the table, legs kicking slightly and skin wet with genetic material. 

Then he wraps his lips around the tip of your bulge and the world ceases existing entirely. 

  


* * *

  


You wake up clean and sore inside the makeshift recuperacoon you’ve claimed as your own. You’re also impossibly thirsty and ravenously hungry. You step out of the coon and very nearly collapse on your knees because all your body wants to do is lie on the ground and be used and abused by anyone around. 

Fuck that and fuck your body too. 

You stumble into the ablution block, which is really just one of those blocks that has, for some mystifying reason you’ve never bothered to ask, a small canal with running water all the time. The ruins are old, older than Darkleer, and built to suit the needs of people that are long dead. You make do, to the best of your ability, because the alternative is worse. You still end up squatting over the canal, back using the wall for balance and fingers knuckle deep inside your nook before you can clear the fog over your mind enough to try and go find food afterwards. You wonder where the tainted water will go, as you dry yourself, and amuse yourself with the idea of Darkleer seeing it and being turned on by it. Or rather, showing he is turned on by it, in his expression. 

In the food preparation block, you find there’s still some of the antlerbeast you killed a day before your body started its little obnoxious routine. You devour a good share of the remaining meat, cutting it into thin strips and frying it until it’s crunchy. You’re naked and you really shouldn’t be frying anything, but clothes are a bother when you’re like this, and the sense of danger is enough to distract your pan until you’re done eating. 

Then you go find Darkleer again, because you can already feel the moisture gathering where your thighs melt into your torso, and the warm weight of the food in your stomach is starting to accent the cold emptiness of your nook. You never knew you could feel exactly how empty you are, before you reached your adult molt and started down this road of ridiculousness. But you do and it sucks and all you want is to be fucked until you’re full. He’s in his workshop, of course, because that’s where he always is. You hunt and feed you both and he tinkers and keeps you both safe and under the radar. 

“Darkleer,” you say, coming to stand by his workbench, and you pretend you don’t notice how there’s a clear space on it, where you were lying on it the day before, or that he’ll probably spent all day sitting here, staring at your ghost in his mind. “I want to fuck you,” you say, blunt and honest and just the tiniest bit pleased with the way he shudders and can’t stop himself, “give me something to fuck myself with while I do.” 

His breathing falters, and you’re not yet gone enough that you can’t appreciate it. His expression is still the same deadpan disinterest that tries to cover the fact you can see the wetness spreading between his legs, ruining his pants and his chair in the process. He gives you a string of beads he made you, when you were still a couple more molts of reaching your full adult size and he refused to let you even look at his bulge. They start small but grow quickly, the largest one almost as big as your hands balled together, and coincidentally the same girth of his bulge at the base. There’s something inside you that’s scandalized that you made him build that for you, and a bottomless fountain of self-loathing about the fact you need something like that, and yet more frustration because you shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of thing, because you’ve rolled with this shit and now it’s almost normal but you can still remember what it was like to _be_ normal. Past you never knew how good he had it, when all he had to worry about was never bleeding in front of anyone else. 

He watches you with infinite patience, silent beyond the continuous shifts in his breathing, as you slide under the workbench and start pushing the beads up inside your nook. They’re cold and hard and unyielding, but they sink in easily enough at first. They get heavier and heavier the bigger they are, though, and you orgasm at least three times in the process of getting them all in. When you’re done, the lips of your nook are stretched almost painfully wide around the largest ball and your insides feel heavy and full. You imagine, for a moment, the balls shifting around in the slurry you’ve essentially plugged in inside you, and the thought sends a pulse of heat all the way down your spine, causing your bulge to lash out at air. The weight in your gut shifts with every minute movement you make, as you crawl over to where Darkleer is leaking in place and trying very hard to ignore it. Every time the toy presses against your walls, your body twitches, tempted to force them out. You’re distracted and unable to focus on anything else but how much you need to fuck right now, but you haven’t reached your peak yet. You still have enough presence of mind to hold onto the feeling of being stuffed and try to make it last longer. In a day or two, you’ll hit your peak and all you’ll be able to do is writhe in place and orgasm just from air brushing your skin. You’ll be too vulnerable and mindless to defend yourself but it’s happened so many times before now, that it’s just an inconvenience. You trust Darkleer to not hurt you, not even when you want him to, and when every physiological imperative is trying to drive him to hurt you. And you’re done playing mental gymnastics to figure out why you make such an effort to please him as much as he pleases you, why you find his company tolerable and even welcome when you’re not drugged by your own body. It’s just the way things are. 

His bulge is thick and monstrous and you keenly want it inside you, but it takes at least three days to prepare yourself for it. With cynicism that disgusts you and feeds onto the singular hatred you reserve for yourself, you like to think of it as the treat that follows the mindlessness of your peak. When you’re loose-limbed and exhausted and gaping wide open, that’s when he slides his bulge inside you and wrecks you until you think you’ll die. So you just wrap your hands around it and offer your mouth to it. You can’t get even half of it down your throat, simply because your jaw will not open further without unhinging itself, but you like it anyway, because it thrashes inside your mouth and makes your entire body shiver and shake, in turn making the muscles of your nook churn desperately. You suck and slurp against the rubbery skin of his bulge, but for all you make him shake and gasp, he still refuses to make a sound. You focus on dragging a sound out of his throat with singular tenacity, recklessly petting and squeezing his bulge, but you don’t get a reaction until one of your fingers brushes the thin strip of skin between the ridge of his sheath and the top edge of his nook. It’s never the same thing that makes Darkleer break. He barricades himself against the highlights of the last season, and you don’t think you should find it so entertaining, to try and make him lose control. Just a little. It’s almost suicidal, given the circumstances, but you can’t stop. 

His body is different than yours, even taking into account your respective builds. His nook is narrow and long and seemingly less flexible than yours. The walls bear down against your fingers as you slide them inside, twitching as you rub the pads against the different textures. His nook will never stretch the way you’ve taught yours how, and there’s a strange satisfaction in using that to make him cry out, when you twist your hand and shove it inside in one go. His muscles tense and relax so fast it seems they’re vibrating, and then blue genetic material gushes down and around your arm onto your lap. You keep pressing and resisting the pressure that threatens to dislodge your hand, because the further in you press the louder he moans, and you love to hear him moan. You don’t have to qualify that statement, either. There’s such a raw, blissful satisfaction in knowing you can make him sound like that, that you might as well admit you’re addicted to the sound. The bulge in your mouth shifts, pressing dangerously close to your teeth as you shove your hand inside him and then pull out until the rim of his nook is twitching around your wrist. 

“Karkat.” 

Your name in his voice sounds obscene, somehow, something lewd and wanton in your gut twisting itself up in excitement at the sound. Nonetheless, you pull back, sliding your hand out his body with a loud squelch and coughing just a little in the wake of his bulge leaving your throat. You whine in the back of your throat when he reaches down for you, pulling you up into his lap. 

“That’s enough,” he says, voice quiet and rumbling and kind, and you want to hate it so much, you really do, but then he’s tugging at the thick ball still caught in your nook and you forget why you’d hate his voice or him when he’s making you feel so good. “That’s enough,” he repeats, hoarse, and starts to slowly pull the toy out. 

Every tug sends a shock of pain and pleasure up your spine, and you’re sobbing with relief when the ball slides out and your nook can close again. Then he keeps pulling, unrelenting but not rough, and you’re dry and spent even as your muscles keep convulsing with each ball that makes its way out of your body. You’re exhausted and worn when it’s over, hanging over the edge of unconsciousness, and all you can do is lay on him, cheek resting on his chest, and purr brokenly for him. 

You’ll hate yourself for it later, when you’re back to your senses and it’s your pan and not your nook making the decisions for you, but there’s really nothing nicer in the world than the feeling of his fingers combing through your hair. 

  


* * *

  


The night of your peak, you wake up with a whimper and your bulge forcing its way inside your nook. You stumble out of the recuperacoon, but you don’t make it further than a few feet before you collapse on the ground. You’re hot and desperate and in pain, every inch of your body pulsing with a need so overwhelming you cannot even string a thought together, much less vocalize actual words. 

You writhe on the floor, no longer remembering where you were going or why, only that the movement is strenuous and taxing but it makes your skin rub against the cool stone and that feels nice. Your bulge lashes inside your nook, stretching to reach as deep as possible, and you don’t have the will to pull it out or the sufficient brain power to remember why you should. Your body is so keyed up that the first orgasm is but a bleep above the baseline of desperation you’re caught in, but even as you roll in your own slurry, you remember him and your pan sizzles at the idea of rolling in someone _else_ ’s slurry instead. 

You lay back and croon for him, like you do every season when your blood seems to have been replaced with liquid lust and you can't even force your body to move anymore. You can see him in your mind, big and strong and kind, holding you down and sating the hunger in your gut. His hands on your skin, his mouth on yours. Your thoughts redirect the intense yearning for release into release by his doing, and you find yourself not just wanting, but wanting him, specifically. 

You trill and croon and whine some more, when the first call goes unanswered, and add sobbing to the mix when the pressure in your groin starts reaching painful levels and he's still nowhere to be found. Your bulge aches from twisting in the unnatural angle, and your nook is painfully empty with just the tip of yourself inside. You slide a hand between your legs and shove your fingers into your nook, alongside your bulge, but you’re clumsy and careless and your claws catch delicate flesh when you do. The flare of pain is enough to send you tumbling down into another orgasm, simply because it’s different than the anxious expectation. You finger yourself some more, cries rising in volume as the pain becomes tangible and your arm tires too much for you to keep up the stimulation. You don’t have the clarity to wonder why he hasn’t come find you, not with your mind near poisoned by hormones, so you cry and writhe and wallow in the memories of him and his touch and how good he makes you feel. 

You keep calling for him, for anyone at this point, until your throat is raw, and your body is caught in a long-lasting orgasm sustained purely by the pressure of air against your wet skin. But he never comes, no one does, and it's not until you wake up in a puddle of your own slurry the next night that you start grasping the idea that he might have left you. 

  


* * *

  


You explore the ruins, naked and desperate and hurt, searching for him everywhere. He’s not in his workshop or the common areas or anywhere. It’s like he vanished into thin air. Every few hours, though, you need to stop your search and sit down so you can fingerfuck your body into submission. You’re still far from being coherent and in full control of yourself, so you can’t stop yourself and wonder if it’s rational for you to run around in the dark, naked and dripping red onto the floor if you stand still long enough. But he’s _missing_ , and you’re worried. Your first instinct is to look for him and you don’t have enough mental prowess to really think about that or feel anything other than a deep, deep fear that he might be hurt. 

Your feet feel raw, almost as raw as the lips of your nook, full of scrapes and scratches where the sharper rocks dug into the soles. And you broke a claw nearly falling face first down some stairs and you’re just dirty and gross and desperate, when you reach the lagoon. Way, way below the ruins, buried deep inside the mountain, you’ve only made it here a few times, never on your own. You sit at the edge and dip your sore feet in the cool water, and fold yourself forward, curling into a ball. You don’t think you can find your way back to the ruins now, and you’re hungry and tired and miserable, and your nook is already throbbing again, trying to distract you from your scattered thoughts. 

You wonder if you’re going to die, or if you should care. 

It would be fitting though, you think, to die like this. You were never supposed to live, anyway. You should have died when you were hatched, or when you were a kid, or when you became an adult, or during your first heat. It seems offensive, somehow, that you survived all that, only to die like this, horny and naked and stupid, because you went looking for a troll you can’t even decide if you like or not, sometimes. You don’t know how long you stay there, with only the sound of water to keep you company, but eventually, exhaustion caught up with you and you welcome the darkness of sleep. 

  


* * *

  


When you wake up again, you’re back in your respiteblock for the season. Your body is sore beyond the usual post-heat pains, but your feet have been bandaged and someone’s left a bowl of cold stew on the table. Given that there’s only one other person in the ruins that you know of, and one other person in the world who’d look at you, covered in the disgusting cherry red of your fluids, and not cull you on the spot, you have a fairly good guess of who is behind the gestures. You pull yourself out of the sopor and bark a laugh when your entire body _throbs_ like an overstimulated nerve. It’s not pain, not in the strictest sense, but it helps you become aware of a very important thing: your mind is crystal clear. 

You can string thoughts coherently and look back at the past few days critically. You know you’re yourself once more, because the memory of them fills you with unspeakable amounts of self-loathing. So you go clean up and put on some actual clothes, and then you shovel the food into your mouth with as much restrain as you can muster. You’re not a fucking animal, despite what your body might say on the matter a few days every season. You’re better than that. When you’re done eating, you take the empty plate and the spoon and stomp away towards the food preparation block while you try to rationalize why you are so thunderously angry at Darkleer for leaving while you were at your fucking peak. 

It’s not, truth be told, like he’s obligated to stay with you and… and humor your ridiculous biology. But he’s always been there and you don’t even know how you feel about it. It feels like an eternity ago that you woke up to hands and leers and all you could do was run away. Run from friends and strangers who took one look at you and seemed to have lost their fucking minds. The details are hazy, blurred under a thick crust of self-loathing and disgust at what your body made of you, the first time you discovered just how fucking broken you really were. And then you ran, as fast and far as you could, away from the stains of cherry red everywhere and the certainty that you were dead if you didn’t. You ran until you couldn’t anymore, until you found yourself in the company of a highblood who took one look at you and crumbled inside out, and then offered you protection to pay a debt that seemed older than the world itself. You hadn’t known, back then, that the respite from your body was just temporary and that it’d happen again and again, until you resigned yourself to call it normal. 

He has always been kind to you, in his own way, willing to endure and resist the torment you put him through, if so was your choice. That he gave you a choice, when your own damn body wouldn’t is something that cemented your trust in him. You can’t even fucking qualify your feelings for him, whether he’s a friend or something else, but you owe him your life, you’re certain, and the feeling of betrayal in your gut is bitter and irrational. He left you, and you still hurt, even now, even sober and composed and self-possessed, and you can’t help but hate yourself some more, because how fucking entitled can you be? 

“I apologize,” Darkleer says, the moment you enter the block, not giving you time to even gather your wits. “I had not meant to leave you in the middle of your… condition.” 

You take a breath. Then another. Then you shrug with flourish and slink over to the basin where you entertain yourself washing them so you don’t have to look at him in the eye. 

“It’s not a big deal,” you snort, lying through your teeth and not even sure _why_ , “must’ve been important shit.” 

There’s a long, awkward silence where you concentrate all your energy on scrubbing that bowl like the fucking Empress will inspect it once you’re done, before Darkleer clears his throat quietly. 

“One of your Ancestor’s followers,” he says, at length, “found his way here.” 

It’s a good thing the Empress won’t be inspecting your cleaning abilities, because you just drop that bowl and shattered into itty bitty pieces. 

“What the fuck do you mean he found his way here?” You demand, voice slightly shrill with fear. “Where the hell is he now?” Darkleer looks at you very pointedly and refuses to say anything. “Oh my god,” you whisper, officially in the process of losing your shit spectacularly. “Oh my god, _what the hell_?” 

“It was unfortunate,” he says, shrugging delicately, “but necessary. Once he entered the ruins, he was… ah, affected. By your condition. He was alone, at least.” He adds, insufferably calm. “I checked.” 

“Sometimes I really, really want to hurt you,” you blurt out, glaring at him a little. 

Darkleer looks almost confused. Almost. 

“…I—“ 

“ _Nevermind_ ,” you snarl, and then stomp over to sit across from him, and talk things out like adults, because that’s what you fucking _are_. “What the hell happened?” 

Darkleer’s expression settles back into the same almost indifferent mask he wears all the time, and he shakes his head slowly, hair rustling as he does. You force yourself not to notice his stupidly distracting hair, like you do every single time your mind decides to take note of it. Because it’s a stupid thing to do, notice his hair, and how lush and soft and pretty it is. 

“As I said,” he seems, mercifully, unaware of your distraction. Because you’re already in a ridiculous mindset, you somehow find a way to feel _offended_ that he’s never noticed how fucking distracted you are by his hair, when you’re you and not the stupid mutant fucked up disaster that’s your blood. “He seems to have found the ruins, looking for me, but once he became affected, there was no other option but to… be dealt with,” he says, delicately, and you’d find it funny if you weren’t fully and disturbingly aware that is his personal slang for _murder_. “I had to leave, unfortunately, to ensure there would be no trespassers.” 

“Yeah,” you can’t help but wince, anyway. So you try to distract yourself from morbid thoughts. “So how did you know he was… you know, one of Signless’ followers.” 

And now Darkleer looks… constipated, which you think means he’s actually conflicted about something. That can’t be good, either way, and you wonder if things are about to get worse. Then you remember that, if you’re involved, things will always find a way to get worse. It’s your fucking destiny, right there. 

“He had a map,” he admits, reluctant, but nothing more. 

So it’s going to be like that, you think. That you know, Darkleer has never lied to you, not when directly questioned. But sometimes he goes quiet and terse and if you want answers you need to ask questions. And you know for a fact he’s got far more patience than you do, and he can stick to his quiet, unhelpful mood better than you can to your curiosity. 

“A map,” you deadpan in a poor imitation of his own, just for the sake of making a point. 

The silence is tense, after that, though you mentally score yourself another point because his lip twitched with the ghost of a smile. Then he scowls and folds his arms on the table. You are still under the last remnants of the heat, even if your mind is clear, and you can’t help but be a little distracted. He’s got nice arms and you’ve always been aware of them. It’s hard, not to be aware of all the nice body parts he has, when you’ve been so thoroughly intimate with all of them, but you force yourself to keep your mind on track, because you’re not an _animal_. You’re a fucking rational troll and you can hold a civil discussion about things, and you will stab yourself in the eye if your body doesn’t get on with the program soon. 

“I used to trade with them,” Darkleer says, with a loud sigh, “when the… movement was young. I would shelter those fleeing from the Empire and offer them means to protect themselves when they needed it. But things changed, over the centuries, and I no longer welcomed them in my presence anymore.” 

You consider your options, mulling over his words in silence. He doesn’t seem very willing to discuss this, but then again, Darkleer is in general never willing to discuss anything, particularly anything about his past. What you’ve managed to learn about your Ancestor and his role in his story was procured over many tedious and awkward conversations that felt like pulling fucking teeth. But this is important, and… you want to know. The movement – as he calls it to be polite, and which would more accurately be acknowledged as a cult – is a nebulous, uncertain thing you try not to think about too often. Because they follow your Ancestor, and they’ve thrived on his beliefs for centuries now. They might be the last group of trolls in the universe that would not cull you on sight just for the kind of monstrosity you are. At the same time, you’re not your Ancestor. And… your condition makes you wary of reaching out for them. They probably want a descendant that believes and acts the same their scripture says your Ancestor did, and you’re not willing to pretend you can fill those shoes just for the sake of not being alone. Being alone isn’t so bad, anyway, you’ve survived this long just fine, and for all the fuckery that drives you up a wall sometimes, you think you’ve done okay. You’ve got Darkleer, too, in a way. You have him and his quiet and his deadpan and his near infinite well of patience for you and the stupid shit you do and say and cause merely by existing. 

It’s not ideal, but it’s yours, and to put it in jeopardy over some half-baked hope seems reckless and dumb and terrifying. 

“Why did you stop?” You ask, swallowing hard. “If I can know, anyway.” 

You relax minutely when Darkleer’s lip twitches into a non-smile again. 

“Their creed grew in ways that contradicted my principles, and their attempts to convert me to their faith were rather unamusing.” He takes a deep breath, then releases it slowly, controlled, and despite your best attempts, you still tense somewhat, bracing for whatever he says next: “I understand that you have a right to join them, if you wish. I do not wish to imply you have any obligation to stay, or that I would not allow you to leave, if so you wanted, but I think it unwise. And I firmly object at the idea of them finding you if you are still unwilling to be found.” 

“You don’t think I’d be safe with them,” you conclude, hoping to god it doesn’t sound like a fucking accusation, “like I’m with you.” 

“They are earnest,” he concedes, looking at your hands rather than your eyes, and you’re grateful because that makes you blush slightly for some reason. “They do believe truthfully and whole-heartedly in what they preach, but what they preach is a corruption of what your Ancestor believed in, and it is not, by any means, the inheritance he would have wanted you to receive.” 

“I don’t think he ever gave any thought about what inheritance he’d leave his descendants,” you muse, a little skeptical, “from what I understand he spent all his fucking life running around and upsetting the hemospectrum and pissing on the Empress’ cheerios like he was hatched for it.” You try to keep your tone light, because you have a feeling this is still a sore subject, as far as Darkleer’s concerned. “And then he fucked up royally like only a Vantas can, and realized first hand that he was just a stupid troll trying to stand against an entire Empire.” 

"And that would be why they made him a god," he says, ever so careful to not at you in the eye. "In the end." 

"Because he was loud and stupid and tragic?" 

The corner of Darkleer’s lip twitches, just a little, which you’ve learn to recognize as his equivalent for a laugh, because god fucking forbid Darkleer emotes harder than a fucking _potato_. 

"Because he was small and frail and kind," he tells you, summarily unmoved by your darkening expression, "and he was still able to be selfless. Selflessness is hard, on principle, but the policies of the state make it near impossible most of the time. It was easier, then, for them to see him as a god, than to admit a normal, unremarkable troll could do something they couldn’t." 

"So they’d rather assume he had supernatural help," you bite out, thoroughly disgusted, "than consider the possibility of actually making a fucking effort." 

“His followers lost the way after he was gone and they clamored him as a martyr,” he risks a look at your face, and you feel a twinge of something, at the haunted ghost in his expression. “But they lost it irrevocably when they rallied behind the Summoner and declared Signless god incarnate.” 

“You hate them,” you realize, blinking rapidly and sitting upright, more so when Darkleer doesn’t immediately contest the fact. “You do, don’t you?” 

“They _revere_ me,” he scowls, the corner of his mouth twitching in annoyance. “They believe I was a follower as well, that I culled him as my duty to him, the highblood servant faithful to his god above his Empress.” 

For a moment, you entertain yourself imagining what he was like, when he was younger and less jaded. If maybe then he still allowed himself to feel things and his face wasn’t a mask that might as well be carved on stone, for all it changes. You try to imagine Darkleer young and in service of the Empress, to understand everything he lost the night your Ancestor died. And then you feel a spike of virulent hatred for the cult that’d try to uproot that from him, to negate his sacrifice and dress it up as part of their dogma. You don’t wonder why he killed the cultist, really, and you’re certain he would have done the same, if you hadn’t been around. But it makes you feel petty and stupid and insignificant, because you’re still annoyed that your heat was interrupted and all you want is to surgically remove that feeling off your person, because it’s _disgusting_. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, after a moment, feeling awkward and dumb as you fumble for the right words, and begin to fear there are no right words after all. “For imposing on you.” You swallow hard. “Maybe it’d be best if I left.” 

You don’t want to, there’s nothing you want less than to leave, but you’re being stupid and it’d be best to leave of your own volition than to wait until your stupidity gets you kicked out. It’s not like you haven’t learned how to survive on your own, in the sweeps you’ve been here. You could probably do it on your own. At least until someone ran into you while you’re in the middle of your heat and you end up a smear of red in the landscape. 

“...you are not an imposition,” Darkleer whispers after a long silence, and you stare in fascination at the horrified look on his face. “I have not done anything I do not want to do.” 

“You took me in because you felt guilty for culling my Ancestor,” you say, shaking because you want to believe him and angry because what if you do and it's a lie? “How the blistering fuck is that not an imposition?” 

“I didn't cull you,” he replies, voice soft, “to pay that debt. Everything else...” He swallows hard. “Everything else was freely given.” He looks away, hiding his face behind his hair. “Even the things you asked for when you weren't yourself.” 

You feel color blooming on your face and a strange sort of pain pulsing in your chest. It’s all so stupid, how you feel and what you want and who you are. And yet you still find ways to make it even stupider, somehow. 

“So you’ll just let me take what I n—want,” you stumble on the word and flush harder at the slip. “Just like that, without any obligation to. Until what, I piss you off and you decide you’d rather snap my neck than fuck me?” 

“If the choice is between those two options,” he says, and you’re mildly surprised to see faint traces of blue appear on his cheeks, “then the answer should be obvious, I would hope.” You don’t know what your face looks like, but given the look on his, you think it’s probably not very nice. “Perhaps we should talk about something else.” 

“Perhaps you should stop being a fucking idiot,” you blurt out, glowering somewhat, and it should be ridiculous, that he’d flinch back from your anger, when you know damn well you’re only alive because he fucking allowed it, but you’re too angry and confused and emotional at the moment, to find the humor in the situation. “You’re not derailing the fucking conversation this time.” 

“What is there to converse or derail at all?” He asks, voice half a pitch higher than usual, “we have already established that anything you required you may take.” 

“Why do I have to be the one taking?” You want to stomp your foot and snarl in frustration, but you resist the urge as best you can, because you’re an adult, god fucking damn it, and you will handle this like one. “What about what _you_ require? Why can’t you just make an advance every once in a while then?” 

The block is suddenly quiet as death. Darkleer looks taken aback, expression the textbook definition of surprise. That too would be funny, really, if you weren’t already cursing yourself for running your stupid mouth and trying to put to words feelings you can’t really even acknowledge for what they are. 

“Because I assumed your... interest was only fueled by your condition,” he admits, voice rough, and you want to hurt him so bad, he's so stupid. He’s almost as stupid as you are, and that’s not exactly a comfort right now. He shrugs awkwardly. “I did not wish to take advantage... not anymore than I already did, as it is.” 

“If I wasn’t interested and you approached me outside of my godawful fucking condition,” you snarl, hating the world and the way he always tries to sugarcoat the fucking constant betrayal by your body, like it’ll somehow make it less… mortifying. “You would fucking know. Wanna know why? Because I’d shove a sickle down your throat and yell very loudly that I didn’t fucking want anything.” 

“Oh,” Darkleer says, apparently for lack of anything else to say, and you swear to fucking god, you want to strangle him a little. 

“I’m going to go kill something,” you say, after taking two very deep breaths, “and then I’m gonna drag its hopeless carcass back here, to make something to eat, because your fucking stew is every bit as gross as ever.” You push the chair back as you stand up, trying to make the best of your height and act intimidating. It seems to be working, at least, in that Darkleer is giving you a vaguely confused stare. “And then after dinner, we’ll talk like fucking adults since you’ll have stopped being a fucking cagey bastard by then, and if you’re in the mood and I haven’t lost my fucking nerve, we’re going to fuck, and it’ll be sober and consensual and fucking magically guilt-free.” 

You abscond as fast as you can, because you’re too smart to stick around and see the expression in his face. 

  


* * *

  


There are so many things your mind just doesn’t notice, in the high of the heat. The prickle of Darkleer’s claws where they hold onto your waist, the slight tickling sensation of his hair on your skin, the subtle shifts in his expression as he concentrates on the matter at hand. Not everything is nice, of course. When you’re in heat you never noticed how rough the wood of the workbench was on your back, or how awkward it is to try and shift your weight when all you have for leverage is a foot resting on Darkleer’s thigh and your already bruised shoulder blades. 

Sex is nicer, when you’re so desperate for it that it’s physically painful to be unfulfilled. It’s a lot more complicated to ask for what you want when your inhibitions aren’t drowned under your lust. But you like it better like this, anyway, because it’s real and sharp and solid, and you _chose_ it. 

Then Darkleer slides his bulge a little further and your body screams at your mind that it can’t do it, no matter what’s happened before, it’s not possible. You press a shuddering breath against his collarbone, trying to force your body into the limp willingness necessary to allow Darkleer to curl his bulge all the way in. The rim of your nook feels hot and swollen, twitching with each little jolt as Darkleer shifts you slightly in his lap. His hands are cool on your hips, and the fact his thumbs keep rubbing little circles above your hipbones makes you want to squirm for reasons you don’t want to examine in detail. You choke on a sob when you finally settle down on his thighs, and you can feel his bulge twitching in the deepest parts of your being. 

“Is that satisfactory?” He asks, in the cutest breathless highblood voice you’ve ever heard, and you wonder if he’s always asked that and you’ve been too busy riding his bulge to pay attention. 

“Yeah,” you say, chuckling a little as you squirm and cause your entire groin to feel on fire. “Yeah, I’m okay.” 

“Are you sure?” He insists, and you wonder how hard he’s trying to keep his bulge still, if he even has enough lubrication to move like he wants to. 

You suppose this is what normal arousal feels like, and it’s a little inconvenient in some ways and fucking awesome in others. 

“The only thing I’m going to break,” you tease, reaching up to wrap your arms around his neck and dig your fingers into his hair, “is your nose if you don’t fuck me good.” 

You keen right on his ear when you feel him shift and lash inside you, the motions a lot more stilted than you remember. You wonder how much of what he’s done to you is like you remember, and how much of that was muffled behind the needy headspace that was happy just to be touched. You feel him shudder under you, his arms closing around you as if you were about to run away. The thought amuses you, as if there was anywhere else you’d want to be, at the moment. You pull at his hair a little, and he makes a sound you’ve never heard before. So you pull again, until he shivers and buries his face into your neck. 

And it’s good, the way he’s utterly obliterating you, inside out, and the way you can feel every individual part of yourself dying, because it’s so _good_. The pain and the strain on your body refuse to let your mind gloss over the details, to simply move from one source of pleasure to the next without really keeping track of the route. And then climax sneaks up on you, while you’re trying to untangle the mess of conflicting signals shooting up your spine about the heavy, pulsing warmth between your legs. 

“Keep going,” you whisper, trying to hold onto him as tight as you can, while your entire skeleton feels like it was replaced by rubber. “It’s okay.” 

Darkleer sobs a curse into your shoulder and sinks in his teeth hard enough he breaks skin, as his bulge coils and undulates erratically against your spasming walls. It’s coming down the side of pleasure into the slope of pain, to be honest, but you don’t care because he’s shaking and for all you’ve done this dozens of times, you’ve never really seen Darkleer fall apart, not when you’re always so consumed by your own pleasure and your own needs. 

It’s breathtaking, and you want seconds already. 

  


* * *

  


“What if we join the Signless cult?” 

You arch an eyebrow as Darkleer chokes on his drink, spitting it out in a spray in a way you thought was only possible in movies. Then again, you should know better, Darkleer has already taught you a great many things you thought were only possible in movies. Still, it will never not be entertaining to watch the deadpan shatter, as proof emerges that he is, in fact, a troll capable of emotion and not just a robot. 

“I beg your pardon?” He croaks, after he’s done coughing up an airsack. 

“Well, you said they’d lost their way,” you turn back to your plate, like you’re talking about your latest hunting expedition and not the single craziest idea you’ve ever conjured yet. “So what if we join them and curbstomp their ugly mugs until they’ve got it right?” 

“Leaving aside the fact I would have hoped you’d learned that revolution is madness by now,” he mutters a little snidely, “I do believe a troll with your… condition would face a significant hurdle as soon as it was made known.” 

“So we make it blasphemy to fuck me,” you grin a little manically, with all your teeth, “unless you’re the chosen hunk of muscle and bad temper I’ve deigned acceptable.” 

“Right,” he deadpans, arching an eyebrow. 

“Tell me with a straight face you wouldn’t gladly enjoy the godly given right to curbstomp anyone who gets ideas about it,” you smirk when he snorts, “or just the idea of curbstomping common sense into some cultists’ skulls.” 

“That is beside the point,” he says, playing with his food and pretending he’s not. “It is a terrible idea.” 

“Yeah,” you shrug, “but don’t you think the fact we’re still alive means there’s _something_ we ought to do? About anything?” 

Darkleer plants an elbow on the table so he can rest his chin on his hand, studiously looking away. 

“I have long since realized why it was necessary that I lived this long.” It takes you a moment, admittedly. And then you feel yourself flushing violently as the only thing that manages to crawl out of your mouth is a strangled ‘ _oh_ ’. Darkleer continues to pretend he hasn’t noticed, either the implication of his words or your reaction to them. “I suppose the cult could have worse leaders, all things considered.” 

You wonder if it’s a bad omen for your future cult leader career that you’re so easily rendered speechless, but quickly decide it doesn’t matter. So long, at least, as you have the choice to decide whether it matters or not. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Now with extra hot/cute/jaw-droppingly gorgeous art by the talented Saeto.](http://anookisfinetoo.tumblr.com/post/60057676697/darkleer-karkat-for-fi-based-on-this-delicious)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, a [sequel](http://archiveofourown.org/works/972389).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [take the burning sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147599) by [ashkatom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkatom/pseuds/ashkatom)




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